1. Related Applications
This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/495,088, entitled “Inverting Difference Oscillator”, filing date 30 Jun. 2009, by inventors Robert P. Masleid and Anand Dixit. This application is further related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/425,176, entitled “Economy Precision Pulse Generator,” filing date 16 Apr. 2009, by inventors Robert P. Masleid, David J. Greenhill, and Bijoy Kalloor.
2. Field of the Invention
The described embodiments relate to pulse generator circuits. More specifically, the described embodiments relate to a configurable pulse generator circuit.
3. Related Art
Many integrated circuits use pulsed signals for control and timing purposes. For example, microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICS), or other high-speed integrated circuits can include pulse latches that are controlled or timed using pulsed signals. In another example, memory circuits such as synchronous random-access memories (SRAMs) can use pulsed signals to control memory operations.
In many integrated circuits, the timing requirements for pulsed signals dictate that the pulse may be only tens of picoseconds in width. Moreover, the pulsed signals may also be required to be within a few picoseconds of the required pulse width to avoid causing errors in downstream circuits. Consequently, it is important to be able to accurately measure the width of the pulse during testing and validation. However, accurately measuring the width of such pulses is difficult because of the short duration of the pulses. More specifically, because the pulses are so short, it is effectively impossible to send the pulses off-chip to be measured using specialized measuring equipment. In addition, measuring the duration of the pulses using on-chip structures is also impractical because of the complexity and size of such on-chip structures.